A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

Today, I withdrew cash at an ATM and paid bills online, saving myself considerable time not having to stand in line at the bank, as well as the expense of envelopes, stamps, and gas to get to the post office. I called my wife, who was visiting her parents in rural Russia, for five cents a minute. I used a free application on my phone to find a good Italian restaurant, reserve a table, and provide me with a map and directions to get there. At work, I participated in a four-city video conference (the total cost for the hour was $50 – significantly cheaper than flying everyone to one location). I microwaved some leftovers in an oven that cost less than a tank of gas. I watched a movie on my $49 DVD player and a baseball game in high definition on a large-screen TV that I bought this year for a third of what I paid for one of the same size five years ago. I finished my day sitting down to write this chapter on a $1,200 laptop that has two thousand times the processing power of the first desktop computer I bought – for three times the price – in 1989.

I did something else today: I read yet another article explaining that technology is driving up the cost of health care and will continue to do so for a long time.

Cato will host a forum on Goldhill’s eye-opening book on Wednesday at noon, featuring the author, Kavita Patel of the Brookings Institution, and me.

The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn accuses Americans for Prosperity (AFP) of “lies” for running an ad that claims “Washington wants to bring Canadian-style healthcare to the U.S.”

AFP’s ad is more defensible than Cohn’s criticisms of it.

Cohn elides the question of whether Shana Holmes (the woman featured in the ad) was almost killed by Canada’s Medicare system. For a supporter of single-payer like Cohn, that is tantamount to admitting that, yeah, socialized medicine sometimes kills people.

Cohn argues that the ad is unfair because Canada has many advantages over the U.S. health care sector. That may be true, but the ad doesn’t appear to defend American health care. It merely says, “government should never come in between your family and your doctor” and “Don’t give up your rights.” That’s not pro-American health care or anti-reform. It’s just anti- the type of reform that Cohn wants. And it points to one area where our semi-socialized U.S. health care sector appears to be superior to Canada’s: quicker access to intensive treatments. Sometimes, that saves lives. In fact, AFP could go farther and say that the United States has another edge over Canada, in that we develop nearly all of the best new medical technologies. In fact, our medical technologies save Canadian lives, but Canada’s health care system (and its supporters) steal the credit.

Yet “the real lie,” Cohn claims, is that the ad suggests that “Washington” wants to impose a Canadian-style system on the United States. Cohn calls that claim “demonstrably false.” But consider:

President Obama has said he would prefer single-payer and has hinted that he would like to make incremental changes in that direction.

Many people who support a new public plan (e.g., Paul Krugman) do so because they believe it will lead to single-payer.

Massachusetts, which has already implemented most of the reforms that Obama and congressional Democrats are considering, is now contemplating a large leap toward Canadian-style health care by imposing capitation on its entire health care sector.

Government rationing becomes increasingly likely as government revenues fail to keep pace with the cost of government’s health care promises. (See again, Massachusetts.)

The Left wants government to ration care. That’s the point of the comparative-effectiveness research funding. That draft House Appropriations Committee report committed a classic Washington gaffe when it said that certain treatments “would no longer be prescribed,” because it was admitting the truth.

Cohn is correct that no politician of influence is saying she wants to impose a Canadian-style system on the United States. But I prefer to pay attention to what they’re doing.